Slate Trucks
Slate Trucks are the Skarloey Railway's most common type of truck, and can be seen as the narrow gauge counterparts to the Troublesome Trucks. Besides transporting slate, they have been known to transport broken branches, hay bales, cows, and sheep. They dislike Sir Handel because he often bumps them. On the other hand, Peter Sam never bumps the trucks unless they misbehave. Biography ''The Railway Series'' Once, the slate trucks mistook Peter Sam for Sir Handel, and decided to play a trick on him. At the slate mine, they snapped the chain attached to the winch on the incline and ran into him, cracking his funnel and denting his boiler. ''Thomas & Friends'' In the fifth series, some empty slate trucks jammed the winch on the incline and ran down the slope into the ravine, causing an avalanche which buried Skarloey. Another time, they broke away from Peter Sam, and plummeted into the ravine at the old iron bridge. In the sixth series, Rusty warned Duncan to be careful with the trucks after bumping them. Unfortunately for Duncan, he got his comeuppance when he jammed the incline winch and crashed into a muddy swamp with the slate trucks. In more recent series, the slate trucks do not have faces. From Blue Mountain Mystery onwards, many faceless slate trucks are seen scattered around the Blue Mountain Quarry. Technical Details Basis The white slate trucks are based on the 2-bar wooden slate wagons of the Talyllyn Railway. The third style of slate trucks are based on the ornate wooden bodied wagons from the Dinorwic Quarry on the 4 ft Padarn Railway. The fourth style of slate trucks are based on the Great Western '2 foot' gauge slate wagon, used on various narrow gauge lines such as the Corris, the Welshpool and Llanfair and the Vale of Rheidol Railways. The Slate wagons are based on a metal bodied wagon featured at the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum. File:SlateTrucksBasis.jpg|Slate Trucks' basis File:SlateTrucksBasis2.png|Dinorwic Quarry wagons File:SlateTrucksBasis3.png|Great Western '2 foot' gauge slate wagon File:SlateWagonsBasis.png|Slate Wagons' basis File:Skarloeyrailwaytype1truckbasis.jpg Appearances Railway Series= ''The Railway Series * 'The Little Old Engine' - Trucks! * 'Gallant Old Engine' - Steam Roller * 'Great Little Engines' - Peter Sam and the Prickly Problem |-|Television Series= Trivia * In the fourth series, the chassis for the slate trucks were made from Cooper Craft O gauge "GWR Match Truck" (3016) and were given modifications : ** Their ends were cut off. ** Parts of the middle were cut out. ** Diagonal w irons were cut off. ** A piece of styrene attached for stability. * The slate trucks' faces would later be used for the Tankers in Toad Stands By. * One of the slate trucks was sold on Vectis with Peter Sam's Series 4 small scale model . Eight slate trucks (Five small scale and three large scale) with their faces and loads are owned by Twitter user ThomasTankMerch. * In Make Someone Happy, one of the large scale bodies was used as a shipping crate for the carousel horses that Percy and Oliver were collecting. * In the CGI Series, smaller variations of the first and second type of slate trucks are also present at the Blue Mountain Quarry. * Some re-scaled standard gauge versions of the slate trucks appeared in Journey Beyond Sodor. Merchandise * ERTL * Thomas Engine Collection Series * Bachmann * Motor Road and Rail * TrackMaster * Take-n-Play * Waku Waku References ja:スレート貨車 pl:Wagony z Kamieniołomu Category:Rolling stock Category:Trucks Category:Mid Sodor Railway Category:Skarloey Railway Category:Blue Mountain Quarry Category:Other Sudrian railways Category:Awdry-created characters Category:The Railway Series characters Category:Thomas & Friends characters Category:Male characters Category:Female characters Category:Narrow gauge